New star awards update 18/06/07

[twopigs]

After all the waiting the BCU website has been updated with some new information - and no it's not the usual "dates to announced in August" stuff.

http://www.bcu.org.uk/bcu/2141-5-bcu-st ... views.aspx

What I like is the
"This document outlines what NEW Star Award Training and Assessment courses current BCU coaches can register to deliver, and which coaches can access training / assessment in order to work towards gaining assessor status
Registration: Only Coaches who have registered and been accredited as Star Award Trainer/Assessors will be able to run these new awards. A form for coaches to register as Star Award Trainers and Assessors will be available to download from the BCU website from 30th June 2007."

Oh - maybe it does have the usual stuff about the future!

[Simon Westgarth]

Still all good especially after the recent need for a "pause" in the new Coaching award introduction, based mainly on not having any resources to retrain the current traineers and assessors. Yet this latest communication has no confimation about the star awards, a proposal made public last January, but NO confirmed details. Can anyone help on this?

Why you ask, well is the new 5 star training, a 2 day course with 2 days advanced WWSR training or is it a 3 day course including a day of advanced WWSR as the January star test proposal, no one seams to know. Interestingly the national centres have played it safe and are offering 5 day courses, a careful move whilst we all await some confirmation.

[GillD]

I can't get the page

[Jamie Adam]

Growl. This irritates me slightly, as the BCU have always said that existing coaches will not be affected or need to retrain straight away despite the UKCC changes. I know the star test updates are not directly part of UKCC, but it is annoying that we now need to do 'something' (still no indication of whether this will be training or paperwork) before we can assess anyone for star tests! And do those of us who are only kayak coaches have to do canoe training to so we can assess the new 'generic' canoe-and-kayak 1* and 2*?

Jamie

[Paul Smith]

Growl. This irritates me slightly, as the BCU have always said that existing coaches will not be affected or need to retrain straight away despite the UKCC changes.

Jamie

They did say that to assess the new star tests people would have to do certain things at least a year ago now.

The retraining of coaches to UKCC standards is not until 2012 or something similiar, so current coaches don't need to retrain as they can still work in their current remits until then, apart from the star tests.

[Jamie Adam]

Fair enough, must have missed that. I knew the UKCC changes didn't affect me until 2012, but not about the star tests. Does anyone know what this will involve? It would need a lot of retraining courses to get everyone sorted by September!

Jamie

[twopigs]

It sounds as if "all" we'll need to do is fill in a form if we want to assess the new star awards..... (That's what I think "register" means.)

And yes, if you want to assess the new 2* you'll need at least 2* kayak or canoe in addition to being at least a Level 2 coach in the other discipline. The candidate is expected to show skills in both a kayak-type craft (powered by a paddle with two blades) and a canoe-type craft (powered by a single-bladed paddle.) hence the heavy hints in CoDe in the recent past.

For the new 1* the candidate can take it in any craft and existing Level 2s can assess without any personal skills in the other discipline.

[Adrian Cooper]

I have emailed the BCU and asked them to sort out the link.

They are working on it.

[Dave Thomas]

I have emailed the BCU and asked them to sort out the link.

They are working on it.

I wonder how many months, and how many missed deadlines. that will take then.

[Adrian Cooper]

Like lightning Dave. Up and working now.

See this extract:

''This document outlines what NEW Star Award Training and Assessment courses current BCU coaches can register to deliver, and which coaches can access training / assessment in order to work towards gaining assessor status
Registration: Only Coaches who have registered and been accredited as Star Award Trainer/Assessors will be able to run these new awards. A form for coaches to register as Star Award Trainers and Assessors will be available to download from the BCU website from 30th June 2007.''

Who can remember Mike Devlin saying that your existing qualifications will continue until 2012. Clearly he was referring to UKCC and not to the fact that on a parrallel tack coaches would need to register to be able to assess even a one star course.

Let's also remember that the new syllabus comes into effect on 1 September even though it has not yet been finally approved by the Coaching Management Committee so your coaches will need to read the trainer and assessor guidance (not yet published) find out what training is required and then after 30 June because it is not due to be published until then, complete the registration document to get your coaches up to speed in 2 months.

Oh yes, and there is a footnote to this document. ''Training on how to assess ... will be available ... through the regional update programme''. Anyone want to guess the likelihood of a regional coaching forum being scheduled during July and August.

I'm sorry, it just makes me spit.

[GillD]

The registration (as far as I understand it) is because the BCU do not hold records of star awards (escept 5*).

This means that level 2 kayak coaches without 2* open boat could happily pass people on the new 2* syllabus without anyone knowing. The registration is just to ensure that people who are assessing have the necessary qualifications themselves.

Regarding training for coaches for the new star awards I would highly recommend it (if you can get it), we went on a 2* orientation session at the recent coach update & find it very useful.

Regarding getting training yourself, talk to your RCO. I'm arranging for ours to run a session at our club in September for all of our coaches.

[twopigs]

Registration because the BCU don't hold records of our star awards (except 5*)? I thought the reason why 3* and 4* were meant to be sent to HQ by the asessor was to allow them to build that database. And to think you have to send the originals of star test certs to them to get your C1.....

The very strong implication at the recent NW Regional Coachfest was that the training was only going to be required at 4* and 5*, a bit beyond the majority of club coaches (and that is what the download from the BCU website says). "All" we'll need to do is register and read the notes (yet to be published.) At 1*, 2* and 3* it might all come together by 31 August.

[Jay Oram]

http://www.bcu.org.uk/bcu/CoachingItemP ... d_1509.doc

The trainer and assessor guidance has just gone up.

Edit: sorry think this is what the first link was for.

[geyrfugl]

Have they really just posted this as a .doc file ? In a directory called 'CoachingItemPDFs' ?? Don't they have any awareness whatsoever of the campaigns of other organisations with some sort of 'freedom' agenda ? Is there anyone at BCU with any understanding whatsoever of technology or the politics of software freedom? Shame on them (again!)

Andy

[twopigs]

Have they really just posted this as a .doc file ? In a directory called 'CoachingItemPDFs' ?? Don't they have any awareness whatsoever of the campaigns of other organisations with some sort of 'freedom' agenda ? Is there anyone at BCU with any understanding whatsoever of technology or the politics of software freedom? Shame on them (again!)

Andy

Sorry Andy.... I was soooooooooooooooo pleased that the BCU had posted info that I missed the fact that it had demanded that we all subscribe to Gates-ware rather than PDFs...... (although I think their is a Microsoft doc reader somewhere on the internet for free).

So at the next BCU AGM we shall have to submit a motion instructing the BCU to post all info on their (sorry -OUR website) using PDF documents.

[foxy]

Don't they have any awareness whatsoever of the campaigns of other organisations with some sort of 'freedom' agenda ?

Andy

Why would they?

The people who write this stuff are boaters! I'm far more interested in their skills and experience of coaching paddlesports, than their softwre savvy and sorry for sounding ignorant of software politics, but I couldn't care less as long as I can read it!

[geyrfugl]

Why would they ?

I don't know about you, but I expect my politicians (and that's what BCU are, after all) to be well informed about lots of issues, not just narrowly focussed purely on what they do (I won't say 'what they do best'). I know I'm not alone in this - listen to radio four in a morning and see how many politicians being interviewed about one news item are asked to comment on some other topic in the news. We cannot afford to have paddlesport (or anything else) run by narrow-minded, blinkered idiots who offend a significant portion of their constituency through sheer ignorance. The only reason they can afford to do so is that BCU is an effective monopoly - just like lots of government bodies, too.

I couldn't care less as long as I can read it!

and how long can you expect to read it ? As long as Microsoft supports the format, at its whim. That is why so many governments and states outside the UK have decreed that all official information must be stored in a format which is publicly and openly documented, and why MS is scrambling to get it's (most recent) format approved as a standard, rather than support the existing OASIS standards. 'The nice thing about standards is that there are so many to choose from' but right now, there is just one, and it is the only one that is open and free, rather than the intellectual property of one, narrowly focussed, commercial organisation. Why would MS not support it ? To restrict your freedom of choice, of course ! Why would bodies wishing to reach the largest possible target audience not support it ? Because they are in ignorance of the politics involved ? Because of a campaign of disinformation ? Divide and conquer !

OK, so you're divided from me. That helps MS to conquer both of us.

BCU already operates in a way which removes a great deal of freedom of choice from practitioners of paddlesport, so, indeed, why would they behave any differently in this context ? I'm sorry, you're right to ask. Maybe it's because not enough people take the trouble to complain ?

Andy

[twopigs]

Wow - I thought I was being helpful drawing people's attention to the document telling us who could assess which new star award. This bit about software politics seems well OT

[foxy]

Andy

I can see you are quite passionate about the whole MS thing, sorry I have read your post and I still couldn't care less about the software monopoly.

I do disagree about the BCU being politicians, I'm not really very au fait with the people who actually run the BCU, but that's not who we are talking about here. We are discussing the people who run the coaching department - none of them politicians, all of them boaters!

[TheKrikkitWars]

I see Andy's point entirely and it isn't OTT just impassioned and possibly in the wrong place, I would like to see them as .pdf too just so i can view them in my browser and archive them in my PDF's File without mucking up my catogoriseations.